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Awards, Degrassi, Industry News, This Hour Has 22 Minutes

Gavin Crawford to host 2007 Canadian Screenwriting awards

From the Writers Guild of Canada:

Outstanding list of finalists announced

The Writers Guild of Canada (WGC) will be celebrating an outstanding array of television, film and radio scripts on April 23 at the 2007 Canadian Screenwriting Awards.Guest host Gavin Crawford will be sure to bring the house down with his insider’s perspective on our industry as a writer and actor on This Hour Has 22 Minutes. Kyle Tingley will co-write the awards show with Crawford.

This is also a special year for the awards with the launch of the new WGC Showrunner Award.

“In the U.S., showrunners like David Shore (House) – who is Canadian – are well-known and revered,” said Maureen Parker, WGC Executive Director. “These writer/producers hold the vision for a television series and make all the creative decisions from development to post production.

“It’s time for Canada’s showrunners to step forward and be celebrated by their peers.”

Over 110 scripts were submitted for this year’s awards, honouring excellence in screenwriting. The entries have been narrowed down to 29 finalists in the categories of feature films, TV movies and miniseries, episodic dramas, comedies, documentaries and radio programs, and includes scripts from TV favourites such as Corner Gas, Intelligence, Slings & Arrows and Degrassi: The Next Generation, and the feature films Away From Her and Fido. See the complete list of finalists (PDF).

The Alex Barris Mentorship Award will also be presented to an individual who has gone above and beyond to help writers get a start in the business, as well as the Jim Burt Screenwriting Prize for best unproduced Canadian miniseries/movie script, and the Writers Block Award, which recognizes outstanding service to the WGC.

All winners will be announced at the 2007 Canadian Screenwriting Awards on Monday, April 23, 2007, at the Brant House, 522 King St. West, Toronto.

Some of last year’s winners include Susin Nielson for Robson Arms, Susan Coyne & Bob Martin & Mark McKinney for Slings & Arrows, and Suzette Couture for the TV movie, The Man Who Lost Himself: The Terry Evanshen Story.

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Industry News

In the news: Telefilm testimonial

From Playback, a testimonial from Chris Haddock:

  •  Thanks from the little guy
    “Telefilm began funding TV production in 1983 with the creation of the Canadian Broadcast Program Development Fund. Since then, the agency has helped finance more than 4,300 TV projects. One of the beneficiaries has been Chris Haddock, president of Haddock Entertainment, which has received Telefilm support for its CBC series Da Vinci’s Inquest and Intelligence.”
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Industry News

In the news: Task force on Canadian Television Fund

From Antonia Zerbisias of the Toronto Star:

  • Task force set up to study TV fund raises alarm bells
    “Just where does the CRTC have the authority under the law to hold a closed-door, one-member-only task force whose purpose is to achieve a resolution among a limited number of parties with commercial interests? According to the Broadcasting Act, a panel must consist of no fewer than three full-time commissioners. This task force has only one, plus three bureaucrats.”
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Industry News, Little Mosque on the Prairie, Rick Mercer Report, This Hour Has 22 Minutes

In the news: Two sides of CBC

4 Comments

From the National Post:

  • Providing viewers with a Canadian alternative by Jeff Keay, head of media relations, English communications, CBC/Radio- Canada
    “But while we’re happy that millions of Canadians are enjoying shows like Hockey Night in Canada, Rick Mercer Report, This Hour Has 22 Minutes (which are, for the record, consistently winning their time slots) and Little Mosque on the Prairie, we also believe there is a place for other Canadian programs like Trudeau, Rene Levesque, and October 1970. While they may not attract large audiences, they are nonetheless important because they reflect our public service mandate.”
  • Answering the CBC
    “Does the CBC deliver more Canadian-made programs than the other network? Sure. Problem is, a lot of it is quite bad. They produce two news-comedy shows (22 Minutes and Air Farce) that are virtually indistinguishable and the much-hyped Little Mosque on the Prairie that, as yet, has made me neither laugh nor see Canadian multiculturalism in any kind of new light. And the shows look terrible, too. Little Mosque, 22 Minutes and Air Farce all lack the kind of professional production and cinematography that make CTV’s Corner Gas look and feel like a real TV show. There’s no mistaking the second-rate production values of CBC’s home-made programs.”

EDIT: The first article is in response to this Feb. 15 article:

  • Whither Mother Corp?
    “There are probably more Canadians who complain about CBC television than actually watch it. The public network, which was already in ratings free fall before its month-long 2005 staff lockout, has seen its viewership numbers drop even faster since. On a typical evening, under 700,000 Canadians tune into the Ceeb for any part of prime time, down from about 900,000 prelockout and over 1.5 million a decade ago.”
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